“Might I know your name?” Reg pressed.
“It’s Jack. Jack Owens. These are me mates, Istvan and Attila, from Magyary. Veterans of their nation’s failed war for independence.” The brothers barely nodded to acknowledge Reg. “You’re with that pretty boy thief, ain’t you? And the white-haired faerie? Guess I know what that makes you.”
“Oh, and what’s that?”
Jack Owens made an obscene gesture, moving his fist in front of his lips while poking his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
“I beg your pardon!” Reg wanted to hit him, wished he could be Querry just long enough to put the mercenary in his place.
“You saying I’m wrong?”
“I’m saying it’s not your affair. Now, we can talk like two civilized, Anglican men, or I can take my whiskey and go. I won’t sit here and be insulted when I approached you honestly.”
“Fine, lad. I s’pose you and your friends fought better than I expected of you, anyhow.” Owens took another pull from the flask before passing it to Istvan. “What do you want to know?”
Reg took a deep breath and reminded himself he needed answers, not vengeance. “I’m curious about your gear, about your goggles especially. How do they work?”
“There’s a fine layer of water from some special, Belvaisian spring between two panes of glass,” Owens said. “The magic water reveals the fey, or anything they influence.”
“Interesting. And how did you acquire them?”
“His Lordship provided ’em,” Owens said.
“Which indicates he suspected we might face fey opposition on this expedition,” Reg said, more to himself. “Did he tell you as much when you signed on?”
“He mentioned it might be a possibility. Why?”
Reg shook his head. “Did you sign a contract?”
“No need. Lordship knows what he’ll get if we don’t see our pay.”
“And, and what did he tell you was the goal of this mission?”
“Something about a magical spring,” Owens said, squinting at the burn of Reg’s fine liquor. “Don’t matter much. We’re here to keep his Lordship alive. Basically, he’s paying us to shoot anything what looks threatening. It’s my kind of job. I don’t need to know what he’s after. Here’s the thing about those fey, mate. Get some iron into ’em, and they’re weak. Can’t fling their silly spells around. You might talk to that handsome girl in the workshop too. I heard she’s got plans to build some device to soak up their magic. Sounds well and truly useful. And as for that great, big fish? Well, shoot it and stab it enough and it dies like anything else, don’t it?”
Having learned all he wanted to know and more, Reg snatched his flask back from the mercenary, pleased to find it not completely empty. “A pleasure meeting you,” he said as he stood to leave.
“Aye, just stay out of my way, boy. Tell your fancy friends to do the same. And don’t be eyeing up my cock.”
Reg hurried toward the hatch, tired of Jack Owens after only ten minutes. Also, he couldn’t wait to share what he’d learned with Querry and Frolic. He was so excited he almost forgot to stop by the galley and collect some bread, cheese, sausage, and canned carrots for their lunch.
Querry groaned with gratitude when Reg spread the food across the bunk they never used. “I’m starving. This looks all right, but I could really go for a kidney pie, just a cheap, greasy one from a cart back in Halcyon. And a gin. I miss gin.”
“Do you think we’ll return home one day?” Reg asked as he bent almost in half to sit on the bed they shared. “I miss the fog. Never imagined I’d say so, but there it is. I miss walking across a fallow field on a cool, misty morning. I remember the smell of the soil. How everything in the world seemed painted in barely different shades of gray.”
They ate in silence with Frolic watching them. “I’m sorry you miss your homes,” he said, looking intently as he curled and uncurled his delicate fingers, as if he saw some great mystery and meaning in the movement of his digits. “I’ve never really had a place of my own, so I suppose I feel at home anywhere you two are.”
Querry rubbed circles over the center of Frolic’s back. “I wouldn’t do a thing differently, beauty. Not one.”
“Well, I might,” Reg said, thinking of the debacle they’d caused back home. “But as much as I miss Anglica at times, I wouldn’t trade being with you for an estate and a title.”
Querry laughed heartily at that. “You did give up an estate and a title for us, Reg. Don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”
They moved onto the floor, folded their legs, and sat in a circle with their knees pressed together. Reg and Querry finished the whiskey in the flask, passing it back and forth as Reg explained what he’d learned from Jack Owens.
“I can’t believe that prick even spoke to you,” Querry said.
“Well, I suppose I bribed him. The important things are, they knew to expect fey opposition. Starling equipped them to deal with it. Further, they think he’s after this magical wellspring. If he’s after something else, he’s deceived them also.” Reg refilled his flask from the dusty bottle in his footlocker and replaced it in his pocket.
“I thought that might be the case,” Frolic said. “I felt like he was lying about the energy source, and Tom Teezle looked away whenever he spoke of it.”
“I’m afraid I’ve trained you up better than I should.” Querry beamed at Frolic. “I noticed the same things.”
“What if the magical spring is a lie and Starling’s seeking something else, something he doesn’t want us to know about?” Reg asked.
“I wish I could get Tom on his own, speak to him without Starling standing over us,” Frolic said.
Querry nodded. “I might be able to distract Starling, keep him occupied for a bit. Let me think on just how.”
“I worry,” Reg said, picking at the peeling skin around his fingernails. “Will Frolic be safe alone with the fey? I don’t like it. Those creatures are dangerous and unpredictable. And Tom seems to have some agenda of his own.”
“I can’t imagine why Tom would want to hurt me,” Frolic said.
“No one knows or understands why they do any of the bizarre things they do. They just aren’t like us. They don’t think like us or value what we value. And their help never comes without a price. Isn’t that right, Querry?”
“Usually, but—”
“Don’t worry, Reggie. I won’t agree to anything or make any deals with him. I just want to talk. Besides, part of me is fey now. I understand them a little, even if I wish I didn’t sometimes. I’ll be fine.”
“I’d still feel better if one of us came with you,” Reg said.
“Because I’m naïve and easy to fool?” Frolic had never sounded so bitter before.
Reg took his hand, stilling the erratic movement of his fingers. He captured Frolic’s gaze and looked into his gorgeous, golden eyes so Frolic would see he meant what he said. “I love you. I have never lied to you, and I won’t start now. You’re brilliant, Frolic. You make things without any effort that simply astound me. All you have to do is glance at a bit of clockwork, and you understand everything about it. You can comprehend concepts I couldn’t begin to understand on my best day. But there’s a little truth to what Starling said. You are new to the world, and it can be more complex sometimes than any machine. You’re just too pure to understand how cruel people can be to one another, what they’ll do to others to get ahead. I love that about you. I’d protect you from anything that might change you if I could. But to be honest, there are things you don’t understand, like why we can’t kiss in public.”
Frolic’s lower lip jutted out, and he managed to look even more adorable, despite the unnerving stripe of black in his hair. “I really don’t understand how expressing love can be a bad thing.”
“Yet it can lead to all kinds of trouble for us,” Querry said gently.
“I feel like I’ve lived,” Frolic said. “I’ve known love and loss and fear and triumph. I know what’s import
ant to me, and I know what’s right. I fight for what I believe in. I’m also confused a lot of the time, especially since that faerie used his magic to repair my heart, but I think humans are confused as often as I am.”
“You’re correct,” Reg said. “I say none of this to hurt your feelings. The world and people refuse to work the way they should, and—”
A booming knock on the door cut Reg off. “Yes? Come in.”
The door squeaked, and the tinkerer, Cornelia, stood there, nearly filling the frame. Her eyes grew wide and darted between Reg and Querry. “I, I—oh, dear. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I didn’t know you’d all be here—”
“Well, this is our cabin,” Reg said gently. He couldn’t imagine what the poor girl found so intimidating about Querry and himself.
“Right it is.” She giggled nervously. “I didn’t mean to say you shouldn’t be here, only that I was surprised you are. But I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? It is your cabin, after all, and it stands to reason—”
“Is there something we can do for you?” Querry asked, a little irritably it seemed to Reg.
“Right. Right to business, then. Well, the engines are a mess, all torn up, and it’s going to take me days to put them back in order, especially without all the proper parts. Honestly, I’m going to have to get very creative with some of these repairs. There’re gears so badly damaged they’ll have to be bypassed entirely, which will mean rerouting entire circuits of the clockwork. I can’t even begin to imagine how I’ll fix some of the piston casings— But anyway, I was hoping I might borrow Frolic. No, not borrow! Not like a tool, or anything—”
Frolic stood and dusted off his bum. At least he wore a fresh set of clothes. His sweet, sincere smile calmed the agitated young woman a bit. “I’d be happy to help you, Corny.”
They left together, Frolic looking even smaller and slighter next to the tinkerer’s bulk. As soon as the door closed, Reg and Querry let out the laughter they’d been holding in. Reg rose to his knees and positioned himself above Querry’s lap before dropping into it. He ran the tip of his nose over Querry’s nose, then brushed his lips over Querry’s mouth before saying, “It appears you’ll have to take all that frustration out on me, then. I suppose I should ask you to be gentle.”
Querry’s blue eyes sparkled as he seized Reg by the hips and pulled him closer, his erection rubbing against Reg’s ass through their trousers. With a low growl, Querry grabbed Reg by the back of the hair and pulled his head to the side so he could suck on the pulse-point just below Reg’s jaw. Afterward, he whispered near Reg’s ear, “You can ask anything you want. And if I thought for one minute, even half a minute that’s what you really wanted, I might even agree.”
Reg groaned with satisfaction and need as he opened his mouth to accept Querry’s insistent tongue and submitted to the force of Querry’s kiss.
Chapter 9
AS SOON as the door closed, Corny relaxed, letting out a long breath and deflating like an air sack on a flying ship when the burner turned off. Frolic thought maybe Reg had been right, and he didn’t understand people so well, because Corny’s reaction utterly perplexed him.
“They aren’t so bad, you know. My friends. You’d probably actually like them if you gave them a chance. Querry loves clockwork, and Reg is the nicest man you’ll ever meet. You really have no reason to be afraid of them.”
She shook her head as they navigated the badly lit, twisting corridors, ducking to avoid pipes and gears. “It’s not that I’m afraid. I just always seem to say the wrong things to people. All of a sudden my tongue feels three feet thick. It’s so hard to guess how they might react. Now, give me a piece of machinery, and I can tell exactly what will happen if you move a part, add another, wind here or twist there. It’s predictable, and it never varies. People, though. People confuse me.”
“Me too,” Frolic said. “I’m glad to finally have someone to talk to, though.”
“Yeah, so am I.” Corny stopped in front of a badly dented piece of metal paneling. She tossed Frolic a wrench and sat down on the ground to get started loosening the bolts. “Good a place as any to begin.”
“Right.” Frolic started on the bolts at the opposite side of the panel, and in a quarter of an hour or so, they’d nearly finished. Corny removed the bolts along the top of the section, since Frolic couldn’t reach. Together, each of them taking a side of the pane, they shifted it, removed it, and laid it out of the way. The gears beneath looked badly damaged as Frolic leaned in to examine them.
Corny whistled through her teeth and slid her goggles over her eyes. “What a mess. Oh, I almost forgot!” She dashed over to an open metal toolbox and rooted through until she found an old pair of clunky goggles, which she handed to Frolic.
He looked at them with curiosity. “These needed fixed? Shouldn’t we worry about the ship first?”
Corny giggled, a deep, rich sound, very different from her nervous titters. “They’re for you, silly. Some of the gears in there are pretty small.”
“Oh, I don’t need them. I can see just fine.” He sat down and got comfortable, anticipating many hours of precise adjustments.
“God, you’re serious, aren’t you? You can see them with your naked eyes?”
“Sure,” Frolic said, loosening a screw with his fingernail.
“Amazing, you just—I think I might— Well then, here.” Corny handed Frolic a few sheets of paper and a thin stick of charcoal.
“What’s this for?” he asked.
With another laugh, she said, “To record the sequence of the gears as you take them apart? So you know how to put them back together after we’ve repaired them.”
“I’ll remember. In fact, I think I can make this all run more smoothly. Some of these gears are completely redundant. If I remove them and reroute some others, I can get the maximum output from the energy going into them. There’s really no need to spread the power so thin. The tension on some of these springs is all wrong. Do you have an eighteen-gauge screwdriver?”
After she didn’t respond for many minutes, Frolic looked over his shoulder to find the plump tinkerer beaming down at him, her hands pressed over her heart. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Bloody hell, I think I’m in love.” She pressed the tool he’d requested into his hand and sat down beside him. As they worked, she stopped often to ask Frolic’s opinion on the configuration of various clockwork circuits. Together, they managed to streamline everything behind the metal wall so they didn’t even have to repair any bent gears or straighten mangled teeth. They simply eliminated gears Frolic found unnecessary and replaced the damaged bits with superfluous pieces. They had to make some adjustments, as the extra parts weren’t always the exact size of the damaged gears, but Frolic found it simple to compensate for the slight differences, and they finished in only a little over an hour.
“Brilliant!” Corny stood, stretched, and twisted her waist. Her bones cracked loudly.
“You don’t dress like most women I’ve seen,” Frolic observed as they made their way toward the next damaged panel.
“Well, I like breathing and moving around,” she said as she crouched to start on the next round of bolts. “I like to be able to walk without teetering along like a fool. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. I just noticed it. I—really don’t understand the need for people to dress differently from each other. It seems to me they’d want to wear clothes that protected them and helped them in their work. I appreciate beauty, but I don’t understand wearing something that would slow you down or make it difficult to fight.”
“Bless you, Frolic. Neither do I.”
“So I’m not alone in being mixed up? You’re a human, and you don’t understand it either. Those corsets and heeled boots just seem stupid to me, and uncomfortable.”
“Hear, hear. If there’s one thing I understand about people, only one, it’s that they don’t think for themselves. I’ll tell you this: if the magazines proclaimed it fashionable to dres
s as a rabbit, you’d see the ladies of Halcyon in bunny suits.”
Frolic laughed until his sides hurt as he pictured noblewomen parading about in rabbit costumes. “I like you, Corny. I’m glad you’re my friend. It’s nice to know someone with such a good sense of humor and an understanding of clockwork. You’re certainly someone I’d want at my back in a fight. Don’t take offense, but I notice you don’t halt or stutter when we’re talking.”
“I just feel comfortable with you. I don’t have to put on airs or pretend to be someone else.”
“Why would you have to do that for anyone?”
“You’re so sweet, Frolic. I wish the rest of the world could see things the way you do. You really don’t expect me to be anything else?”
“Like what? You’re a brilliant tinkerer and a good friend to me. And like I mentioned, you can hold your own and then some if there’s trouble.”
“Right then. Let’s get back to work. Another panel demands our attention. This is the easy part, especially with your insights. I have no idea how we’ll repair the steam conduits and damaged pipes. We don’t have the resources to replace them.”
“I have a thought on that. Why don’t we melt down all these spare parts and use the alloy to patch the cracks in the pipes? It will make them heavy, and won’t be a permanent solution, but it might get us to a port where we can procure supplies. We’ll have to take each section of pipe into your workshop. The molten steel won’t last till we bring it here, but it’s better than nothing.”
“You are a marvel, Frolic. I’d like to know more about you, if you’d be willing.” Corny sat down and adjusted her eyewear to inspect the clockwork.
“I’d like to know more about you too. You can ask me anything you want. I trust you, Corny.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that. I can’t help but wonder about how and why you were made. Why would someone make such an intricate clockwork? You seem so human. Do you know anything about the person who created you?”
“No. I wish I did. I’d give anything to know what he intended for me, why he made me as he did. I have to wonder how much of me is the result of what I’ve experienced and how much he designed.”
A Grimoire for the Baron Page 11
